


Love is Like a Shower of Stars: Kamakura Period

by mahoutokoro-at-nagumo (chromemuffin)



Series: Mahoutokoro AU [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Mahoutokoro, Expanded Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, Japanese Wizarding Culture, M/M, Mahoutokoro (Harry Potter), Multi, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding, other tags on a chapter by chapter basis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 21:11:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14120913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromemuffin/pseuds/mahoutokoro-at-nagumo
Summary: A chronicle of the history of wizarding Japan as told through individual accounts across time. This massive project will be told through a variety of narrative styles, from standard narratives to diary and textbook entries and even plays. Because it spans a number of years from approximately year 800 to the present, each work in the series covers a single era in Japanese history.This work covers the Kamakura Period (1185–1333).





	1. Table of Contents

### About the Project

 _Love is Like a Shower of Stars_  is a Harry Potter AU set in a canon-divergent Japanese wizarding world. It originally started as a way to showcase various headcanons I came up with on my tumblr, [mahoutokoro-at-nagumo](http://mahoutokoro-at-nagumo.tumblr.com/), which is dedicated to crafting a believable magical Japan based in the Potterverse. It quickly gained a life of its own from there as I delved into family histories, Japanese wizarding culture, and Japanese magic as a whole. As stated in the tags, this fic is not entirely canon-compliant (the location of Mahoutokoro, for one, is completely different as is the name of the school itself), though it does still follow the rules of the Potterverse and is intended to take place in the same verse. It will not contradict any major events from the novels.

As a heads-up, I will not be posting chapters in order. I write as inspiration strikes. There is also no overarching plot for the most part. Several tales do connect to others from a different time period, thus the table of contents at the beginning of each work. It will link to direct sequels where appropriate. As stated in the summary, some chapters follow a more traditional narrative while others are diary entries, excerpts from books, and even parts of a noh or kabuki play if I can pull it off.

This work in particular only covers the Kamakura Period (1185–1333). At some point, I quickly realized that the number of stories I have planned for this project would make this a supremely long fic well over 100 or even 200 chapters by the end, so I decided to split the series up by era. I realize that some of the eras are much longer than others (the Edo period lasted over 250 years, the Taishō a mere 14), but it'll probably be fine this way. Probably.

Requests are welcome and can be left in the comments section here or on tumblr.

A final note: relevant tags and warnings will be listed at the start of each chapter. There are waaay too many to list in the proper tags section.

### Table of Contents

The last three stories added to the fic will be highlighted in **bold**.

  * [The Origin of Yashahime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658817/chapters/31460157) (Part 1), **The Man-Eater Yashahime** (Part 2)




	2. The Man-Eater Yashahime

### The Man-Eater Yashahime

  


##### Yamamoto Village, Mutsu Province

Rainwater splashed at his heels and mud from the drowned earth threatened to drag his feet under as he stumbled along the roadside. The hounds on his trail were momentarily hindered by the rain, but the heat licking at the wound in his side ensured that they would eventually find him no matter how far he fled. He had no medicine of any sort, and no sutra or spell was suitable for mending a wound this deep. Stopping even for a few hours to find a local physician was also out of the question.

With nothing to do but run until his strength gave out, the young man ignored the instinct screaming for his body to pause for breath. His vision was blurred, either through exhaustion or the rain in his eyes, he could see clearly the path before him. Beyond the edge of the townhouses lining the main roads, beyond the fields surrounding them, was the forest of the mountain that came to be known as the ‘mountain of the _rasetsu_ [1]’ to those from afar. To the locals, however, that mountain and its lands were called ‘Yashahime’s domain’ out of both fear and respect in equal amounts.

The young man had heard of it. Any child raised along the coast of Mutsu Province was bound to know the legend by heart, any child born to a family of the arts even more so. His half-brothers and sisters, before he knew them to be his half-brothers and sisters, had often told the tale when they played tag with everyone else in the neighborhood. ‘Yashahime’ was the ogre that devoured all who approached her. It was no surprise, upon learning that he had inherited his father’s talent for the arts, that Yashahime was real after all.

At any rate, it was a place to avoid under normal circumstances. He heard that even the birds seemed to avoid the area, flying around the entrance to the old path leading up the mountain instead.

However, there was nothing left for him to lose, nothing for the evil spirit Yashahime to steal from him. Even as he fled from his pursuers with violent desperation, in his heart, he had known the gravity of the situation long before his mind accepted it. Entering the spirit’s domain or avoiding it like he was advised - either way, the outcome would be the same.

In the end, his choice was not really a choice at all. He could let the demon of Yamamoto devour him or he could let his half-brother’s familiars tear him to pieces. What talent he had for the arts was not enough to dispel even one of Kazutoshi’s _inugami_ [2] , let alone all three of them. He was still alive only by the grace of the shrine maiden who pitied him and gave him that protective amulet, but with its power spent, he had nothing left except a few slips of spell paper.

Now, standing in front of an old house overgrown and partially decayed over the years, he felt the urge to come up with desperate, inefficient plans fade from his mind. Despite losing hope, he had still been considering his options. Standing in front of that house, however, made those feelings inconsequential. The closer he stepped, the more the cold seeped into his bones and the deeper the sting of his wounds dug into his flesh.

The door was ajar, a few panels of wood splintered or caved in. He squeezed through the narrow opening, wincing as the motion of pushing it open sent a wave of heat-filled pain through his entire left side. 

The interior of the place was no better. Although he could see nothing except for an ink-black hallway and filthy floors, the air just beyond the entryway was thick with the cloying, oppressive air of _yōkai_ energy. It tended to linger in places where people normally never traveled, and the rites and rituals performed at the shrines and temples across the country were usually successful in driving all but the worst of it from civilization. He had never felt one quite so daunting in his life. It was difficult to even breathe in here.

The young man stumbled forward, legs stiffening as blood coursed through his limbs, flooding them with blinding pain. The pulse of the energy that fueled his art fluttered wildly within him, lacking an outlet but insistent on doing something to preserve his life. Or, perhaps it was just reacting to the flagging of his breath, the darkness crawling through his vision as his knees buckled and his body crashed to the floor.

Half-rotted wooden planks splintered under his weight, but he could barely feel the impact. He tried to figure out how much time he had left, or more accurately, how long it would take his brother’s familiars to reach him. After that point, there was no use in counting. The summoning of an _inugami_ had long been outlawed, and for good reason. However, coin and influence go a long way in convincing officials to turn a blind eye to the rituals used to create them. His half-brother was one of the few who possessed enough of both to get away with it three times over.

Some people were just blessed with all of life’s fortunes, he supposed.

“It is no use arguing the fairness of it,” he had told the priestess who pressed the amulet into his shaking hands. She said nothing to prompt those words and replied with nothing more than a sympathetic nod. He could not even be sure if she understood him, if his speech was intelligible or sounded like the raving of a dying man.

With his cheek pressed against the dust-strewn floorboards and the haze of black edging his vision receding, he could finally catch his breath. And now that he could hear beyond the sound of his heart pulsing strongly in his chest, he noticed how the wind howled around the dilapidated house and how the walls groaned out of tune with the gusts of rain and cold. Lifting his head, which felt as heavy as a sack of rice, he remembered a line out of that old children’s game.

And the ogre Yashahime will come to devour you–

He shivered, but not from fear. The house grew colder by the second. Or, perhaps it was he who was growing colder. His eyelids slid closed, barely able to focus on the dusty floors before him.

Perhaps this was for the–

Or maybe it was–

“A spell,” he breathed, perhaps not even speaking at all except within his own mind. His eyes shot open and focused on the sight of his slightly curled fingers stained dark red with half-dried blood. Although his mind screamed for him to ignore it, he pressed the fingers of his other hand against his wound still bleeding sluggishly.

Pain crawled up his side, warm and sharp like knives.

He was going to die here. He knew that. He didn’t need a spirit or an ogre to coax him into expediting the process.

 _But don’t you want to die? Don’t you want to stop hurting?_ He could almost hear the air whisper it in his ear, but he doubted it was due to anyone’s spell except for his own mind and the dense concentration of _yōkai_ energy in the air. “ _Yōkai_ are the reason people’s hearts become twisted. They are the source of mankind’s ills,” as they say.

“I don’t want to die,” he murmured to himself. It was a deluded, powerless mantra, sure, but one nonetheless. “Of course I don’t want to die.”

The young man stared into the darkness. Any time now, he supposed. It was only a matter of whether the _yōkai_ haunting this house or his half-brother and his familiars would reach him first.

Sometime later, he heard claws scraping against dirt and the sharp, unnaturally hoarse baying of the _inugami_. Lifting his head weakly, he saw their dark, partially upright forms pacing back and forth in front of the door. One would stick a snout through the gap, then retreat with a growl as if it had been stung on the nose.

Was the spirit’s curse on this house so strong that even creatures as powerful and terrible as the _inugami_ refused to enter?

The young man dragged himself forward, wincing as the movement tugged at his wound. The bleeding had stopped, but the burning pain persisted. It was the only part of him that was warm.

The door and windows rattled as time went on. His heart rate had sped up and refused to calm, the weight of anticipation heavy in his chest and stomach. He imagined those flashing white teeth sinking into his leg, then his shoulder, and then his throat. Shaking his head, he pushed himself into a sitting position only to slump against the nearest wall in exhaustion.

This time, it was impossible to shake off the black shadows in his line of sight, the way the world spun when he tried to move his head to watch the _inugami_ at the door. The discomfort in his chest climbed to painful levels, feeling something like a beast trying to claw its way out with every beat. He felt every breath tremble in his chest and the cold, unnatural grip of what must have been the house’s spirit curling tendrils of _yōkai_ energy around him.

Begone, it insisted wordlessly. A gust of wind without a source brushed against him, leaving his skin tingling.

“I can’t,” he protested. He heard voices rise above the _inugami_ howling at the door and the wind causing the house to groan. Reluctantly, he closed his eyes.

The eternity that followed was tainted by feverish dreams of blood seeping between floorboards and the bitter, caustic sting of betrayal. It was a sentiment so close to his own heart that he could have confused it for his own in the moment his half-sister led him into the room to be stabbed by his half-brother’s blade. Their mother’s will, ignored and disgraced, was dangled before his eyes as he scrambled to reach for a weapon. The scoffs and vile glares those two he should have called his siblings filled his heart with the blistering heat of rage.

It was the very same rage as Yashahime’s. He felt it intuitively as he opened his eyes again.

The scent of blood was not only in his dreams, he realized upon awakening from a fevered sleep. Before he could examine the remaining features of the lumps of flesh sitting in puddles of blood, a wall of cloth and the long limbs of a pale creature that was no longer human moved in front of him. The young man could not focus on any single aspect of it for longer than a second or two before his eyes were drawn away from it, as if entranced by a spell.

Hands as cold as ice slid across his skin and half-spoken words ghosted in and out of his senses.

  


* * *

  


A child much like herself appeared in the remains of her home. A child with his life cut short, treading the border between this world and the next.

Before, travelers were always met with fury. _How dare you enter my home. Just as you have stolen from me, so too shall I steal from you!_ Fools who entered her domain and tread upon her pathetic resting place deserved death. But a child who was already halfway there stirred nothing in her but pity.

Who in her lifetime pitied her? Every thread of her being screamed with the injustice for her devotion, wailed to be freed of the shackles she maintained upon herself in life. But, reason hummed to her as she watched the boy crash to the floor and remain there without the energy to move, her pain did not change the fact that he was just as pitiful. The power she gained in death reached out for his, wrapping around him like a shroud.

His heart, the force of the soul, the energy contained within his core - it trembled with pain and hate and sadness much like her own. She almost gave birth to the words: _rest, sleep, it’ll all fade as soon as you let go_ , but her restraint did not hide the intent. It flowed into him despite her silence, a curse heavy enough to reject the will of its originator.

No, perhaps it was her will to convey those sentiments to him. Pity filled the gaps not filled in with hatred and righteous anger and if she was not going to end his misery herself, the least she could do was convince him to do it himself. She knew that was her weakness, even in the state she now existed, for she could not give him the mercy of dying quickly. Not when the heat of pain and determination shone in his eyes, reminding her of a gaze she had all but forgotten in the decades spent ensconced by these walls.

A significant part of her wished that they could have met one last time, even if it meant seeing her little girl under same circumstances as this nameless boy. In some way, she had always hoped her daughter would stumble upon this cursed house once more, and in some way she was glad that she had not. And if it was her, she would still not have lifted a finger to help her along out of selfish happiness for their reunion.

Even when the boy said, “ _I don’t want to die,_ ” she did nothing.

Even when crawled futilely across the floor, she did nothing.

But when she heard the dogs baying at the door and the howls screaming into the sky, she stirred at last. Their cries to sink their teeth and claws into flesh to draw blood from the same beings that caused them such pain in life were so similar to her own sentiments that she almost let them slip into her domain without resistance. Their lifeforce crashed against hers, each singing with fury, theirs compelled by the bindings of a contract made in blood, hers tempered by the resentment of her death.

However, the lingering feelings tying her to the living world were bound to her heart and soul, which wavered as she gazed upon the boy who had trespassed upon her home. Though his limbs were steeped in the cold of death, his wound and face burning with fever, he clung to what little life remained within him.

She thought again of her daughter. Would she truly have wanted to meet her again under these circumstances? No, of course not. No proper mother would wish that upon her child. It would have been more reasonable for her to return for her, just as she promised. If she had tempered her own pain, however much it tore her apart inside, if she had chosen to live despite it.

Once, she had said to herself that she would be willing to throw everything, even her life, away for her child. But that had turned out a lie of the most terrible sort.

And so, this time, she really had only one, single choice.

She turned on the creatures whose hearts mirrored her own, and on their masters who dared bind their souls to with such wretched techniques. Their screams fueled her until she completed the deed and all that remained was the soft patter of the rain against the earth and the hollow rattle of the boy’s dying breaths.

She drifted over to him, running a hand over his face, the pulse of his life weakening in her presence.

All creatures die someday. Even ones that are already dead.

But –

  


* * *

  


The spirit known as Yashahime breathed her first and last breath since the day she died and the young man opened his eyes to a dusty hallway filled with the cold, bright light of the morning sun.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 _Rasetsu_ or _rakshasa_ are man-eating demons or ogres from Buddhist and Hindu mythology. [return]
> 
> 2 _Inugami_ , literally 'dog spirit', are dog _yōkai_ created from a cruel ritual and bound to serve the wix who summoned them. [return]

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks goes out to mod of [themonsterblogofmonsters](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com/), from whom I am borrowing several headcanons and who continues to be an immense help with the plotting, brainstorming, and motivation for writing this fic.


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